Dance With The Tiger
by sdbubbles
Summary: "Letting it go is the name of the game, is to dance with the tiger, and laugh at the rain." Hanssen's thoughts as he got on the plane to come back from Stockholm after "Hanssen/Hemingway."


**A/N: Hello, people :) this is just what I think may have been going through Hanssen's head when he got on the plane to return to Holby from Stockholm. It might not be much good - I threw it together in under an hour and a half after coming home from the infirmary in Arbroath. The song is "Dance With The Tiger" by the amazing Rosanne Cash.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

_In every woman and man lies the seed of the fear  
Of just how alone are all who live here  
Denying the fear is the name of the game  
To stare at the fear is going insane_

As he steps aboard the plane, he wonders why he hadn't done this sooner. The only answer he finds is fear. He had always been terrified of facing him again. Terrified of what would be said and done. Terrified of hearing truth and lies, love and hatred. Terrified he would come out the other end even more lonely than before.

But he knows what a lonely place this world is, he remembers as he sits in his seat. That is why he is returning; there is nothing left for him in Stockholm. The land of his birth is no longer his real home. He has no ties left to that place other than a past full of pain, a son he doesn't know, a dead father he never truly knew.

Even while he sat in that apartment with Jac Naylor, when she asked whether he would return to Holby, he had had no answer. The fear of what is back there is almost as great as the fear of what he has just faced where he once believed he belonged.

The fear of how everyone will take to his return is in the forefront of his mind; he is not one for caring what others think but there are opinions there he values. He very much values Jac Naylor though he would never inflate her ego by admitting it. He values what the likes of Chantelle Lane and Antoine Malick think of him because their consistent honesty is important to him. And, though he hates to face it, he has no choice but to value Serena Campbell's point of view because it is becoming increasingly clear he is going to have to work closely with her.

But he refuses to let that fear keep him back. He has done that most of his life and it has never served him well. He knows now that the only way to live a life worth living is to deny that fear a battle. To simply walk over it.

He knows now that if he sits there and gazes at that fear without conviction, as he has done too many times before, this time it may actually drive him mad. Before now he has always had a distraction. A hospital to run. Staff to watch over. Finances to control. But when he is sitting in an apartment with ghosts floating around in his mind, there is no distraction. There is only fear. Fear has crippled him for too long, so he has decided to play the game and face it down.

_Forgiving the fear is one up on Cane  
Is to dance with the tiger  
And laugh at the rain_

He does not blame himself for being frightened. Any normal person would be frightened if what lay behind them was the trail of destruction that lay behind him. He forgives himself for certain things. That Maja has forgiven him has made that easier. Other things, though, are not so easy. They may come with time, though he holds out little hope. All he knows is that if he forgives himself for certain things then he has won, and the past is just that.

The option to wallow and berate of himself is always there, but he finds now he would rather walk the line. At least if he walks the line then there is hope. Despite the danger of stumbling astray of the line and despite the fact he will always have that part of him that wanted nothing more than to run from the perils of the line, he prefers to prove to himself and to anyone who doubts him that he has it in him to survive it.

There will be times when he will regret getting on this plane, particularly when looking certain people in the eyes. The reason he has decided to return is that in Holby there is hope. There is a light that runs through even the darkest of those people he knows there.

Whether it be Chantelle Lane or Sacha Levy, whether it be nurses' jokes or petulant consultants, there is always something there to make him quietly smile despite the grey cloud hovering dangerously close to his head.

Here, he has nothing left but that grey cloud. He has no family. He has no friends, Maja and Nils aside. He has nothing left for him here.

_Don't give me your life, I have one of my own_  
_It was a brilliant idea inventing the home_  
_Creatures of habit, American fools_  
_Reaching for stars while we're standing on stools_

When he showed up here, it was not his intention to reconcile with his father. It was his intention to give Serena Campbell her way – temporarily – and actively block his father out of the life he has made for himself. He just never dreamed he would be found. He had naively assumed he would be left alone.

He had not wanted an explanation of any description from his father; he had only wanted peace and quiet to live without him. He will never understand how people – himself included – manage to make such messes of their lives. The idea of the quiet family life is something that, even as a child, has always been non-existent to him. After all, a missing father and a suicidal mother is not an ideal set of parents and definitely not what the inventor of the happy home had in mind. But he has made himself a life and he does not want anything from anyone. His life is lonely, admittedly, but sometimes he wonders if it is a better life to lead. He stands by his assertion that relationships and love are a toxic path to pain and hopelessness.

He knows when he returns to Holby he will fall back into a routine. The same routine he had before he ever left there. The sparring, the quiet rivalry, the sometimes childish politics...eventually he will feel like he had never left. But he will know. He will fall back into his habits but he will know he broke them to face down his own fear.

One thing he has noticed is that people will do anything to achieve what they need, or at least what their hearts believe they need. He has watched people climb higher and higher only to make a mistake and fall right back to the ground again, and so they find a pedestal to help them. In the form of policy, reliance or deception they try and reach their goal from that pedestal they have created, never really understanding it is useless when there is something else missing.

He has seen himself do it before; in fact, it has been the majority of his life spent doing it. He climbed and climbed the career ladder, never once looking down until now. And now he is looking, he sees he has left nothing there to catch him when he falls from the ladder keeping him up.

_Letting it go is jumping the train  
Is to dance with the tiger_

But what if he was to simply let go of that ladder? Allow himself to fall? Start again from scratch? Has he enough of his life left to him to actually make something of it or has he wasted too much of it holding onto the fear, using it as his excuse not to have a real life?

To let go of that ladder would be terrifying and he doesn't want to do it. He can let go of the fear of the height he has found himself at and the emptiness below, but he cannot bring himself to let himself fall into that empty space below. He cannot bring himself to start again. He needs the foundations of what has fallen to rebuild it. He cannot redesign it all again.

But this time he will build without fear. He will build on top of what is worth holding onto, throwing what is not onto the growing pile of rubble that is the broken pieces of his past.

_Letting it go though we won't be the same  
Is to dance with the tiger_

His life won't be what it was when he starts doing that; those pieces of rubble were once his life and he has just pulled that to the ground, everything he thought he knew being disproved before his eyes.

It feels like a dangerous mission to start rebuilding. The danger of loose debris falling on him at any moment almost paralyses him when he thinks of the prospect. He has been frightened for too long for it not to feel dangerous.

Nothing will ever be the same for him now. Yes, his routine will return to him and Holby will feel like he never left, but he will know he left. Jac Naylor and Serena Campbell know he left and know where he went. They don't know everything but they know enough, and he cannot possibly predict how that will affect the relationship he holds with each woman.

He will know he left. He will know why. He will know what happened when he did leave. He will know that everything he knew was wrong. But he will continue to live. To walk the line. To climb the ladder. To face the dangers of rebuilding.

_Letting it go is the name of the game  
Is to dance with the tiger  
And laugh at the rain_

He has to play the game he has started, and to win he must let it all go. He must stop letting it pulling him down or he will not be able to keep going. The game is dangerous for him. He has nothing left to lose but himself and he has become perilously close to losing his conviction as he stared at the fear, unable to make a move of any kind.

But now he stares at the fear with conviction. He stares at the fear knowing he can beat it. He stares at the fear with the knowledge that he now knows how to play the game and win.

The name of that game is to let it all go, to let the past fade into where it ought to be – behind him. The name of that game is to let the fear go even though he knows the danger of falling, or the debris falling on him, is enormous. The name of the game is to dance with the tiger though he knows it may bite him if he makes a wrong move in the game.

But while he dances with the tiger he must remember to smile at the grey rain above him, knowing that the people with him, climbing the ladder and playing the game with him, hold the light to make him happy.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


End file.
